Welcome back to the Hall of Eras! We realize that the name of this museum sucks, and were in process of starting a Kickstarter to form a committee to create a review board to organize meetings to brainstorm crowdsourced suggestions for a new name. Im from academia, I know how this works. Theres a movie called The Limey. Its decent enough, kind of like Taken without the happy ending (no spoilers here, its the premise of the movie). The part that really stuck with me is when Peter Fondas character, an aging record producer, monologues about how people go on about the spirit of the 60s, coming to the conclusion that the 60s that people, talk about was really only a year, maybe a year and a half, from 67 to 68. I feel the same way about the 80s. It wasnt some monolithic mishmosh of all the stuff that folks who werent there think of it as. I mean really, there were at least three 1980s, and thats just taking pop music into account. This was the song, and yes, the video, that signaled to me that wed reached another inflection point. Throughout the early MTV years, anything was possible, and nothing was sacred, because everyone was still figuring it out. You got Russ Mulcahys nonsensical but gorgeous fantasies, hip hop artists mingling with hard rockers, dance songs by musicians who clearly made no effort to dance, weird little regional songs that somehow blew up and became national hits. No one stayed in their box, because there was no box. Yet. And then, things solidified. MTV learned to control the influence it had, and artists catered to them. In a similar vein, mainstream musicians experimented a little less, and worked on perfecting known formulas. I dont think this is a bad thing, its more of just the natural process. Less mad science, more engineering. This video is a perfect example. There had been solo dance videos before, and there always will be. Hell, this one almost follows the same plot as Billy Squiers Rock Me Tonight, and that was ghastly. This is just better than all the rest of them in every way. Better song (courtesy of Monte from The Time), more interesting dance, and an artist that we dont mind seeing prance around. And Janets t-shirt, while puzzling, is a lot less crazy than Billys pink tank top. The song itself is one that couldnt have existed in the early part of the 80s. Technological considerations aside, it would have just sounded alien. But for 87 it sounded just right. Perfect. To me, the 80s, at least one of them, ended right here. The experimental phase was over, and from here till about 91 it was all about honing the craft, putting the lessons learned into action. There would be a lot of perfection in the coming years. Wed see Madonna become an icon, Guns and Roses and Bon Jovi would rewrite the book of rock, hair metal would take the glam of glam and run with it like crazy, girl groups and NKOTB and Uncle L. And I loved them, these new boxes. But there was a a little bit of sadness when this song faded from the charts. Seeing Janet sashay out of the loft at the end of the video was like the music worlds way of saying, 83-87...its over, man, and youll never see its like again.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 16:56:05 +0000
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